Difference between Application Services and Services

Question

Hello everyone,
I wonder what's the different between Service and Application Service? and is there any usefull links to this difference?, can we install the service in a separated server?

Answer 1

Diana,

Can you elaborate on the last statement, "can we install the service in a seperated server"?  In regards to Service Applications we have a distributed "al-la-carte" model in 2010 in which you can provision your services on demand and extend their individual components across servers in a topology.  For additional information the Service Application framework, I would recommend referencing David Taylor's posts here http://blogs.msdn.com/dtaylor/.

Thanks,

Bill

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Bill Baer

Answer 2

Thanks Bill,
I meant here is there a middleware called "Service" and another type called "Service application" because i saw this mentioned her: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee704547(office.14).aspx in a way that makes me confused!
Regarding my statment, i mean can i install the service in it's own box (Server) or it must be installed with other services?

Regards,
Diana.

Answer 3

Services on server can refer to both Web services in addition to typical NT services that run on the server.  Service Applications are resources that can be provisioned both locally or published across server farm environments, for example User Profile or Web Analytics whereas services are localized to server farm environment and commonly run on each server in the server farm environment.  For example, Web Analytics is a service application and can run on a single server farm or can be published to be consumed by other server farm.  Web Analytics has associated with it, services, for example the Web Analytics Data Processing Service and Web Analytics Web Service which in most common topologies will run on a dedicated application server.

The manner in which you distribute service applications and their associated services is two fold, a matter of preference and use case scenario in addition to the limitations of that service.  For example, some service applications are client oriented and cannot be federated, such as Word or Access Services.

In regards to federation and localization you can publish:

User Profile Service
Search
Managed Metadata
Business Connectivity Services
Secure Store
Web Analytics
PerformancePoint

However, you cannot publish:

Usage and Health Data Collection
State Service
Master Data Service
Project
Client Oriented Services
Excel Calculation Services
Visio Graphics Service
Access Services
Word Services
Word Viewing Service
PowerPoint Services

because these are either farm centric or client oriented.

Hope this helps!

Bill, Technical Product Manager - US-SharePoint

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Bill Baer

Answer 4

Thanks Bill for your reply, it's really helpful...

So please correct me if i am in the wrong path, i will try to explain how i understand Service Architecture from a Development prespective:

The InfoPath Forms Services... it provides the web part(s) that's do the web-rendering processing ... so it cannot be consumed outside the farm because the rendering processing will be done inside each WFE of the farm itself (Client Oriented Service ) - Where the web parts reside -.

The State Service is a Farm Centric Service , because it's managing the farm asp.net sessions' states, so it cannot be consumed from another farm to manage it's states...

While Business Connectivity Service is responsible for connecting with external systems and do some operation that can be processes inside it's physcial server and the results can be sent back to the consumer which may another farm.

One last thing can you please recommend a resources for understanding the Services architecture and how to distribute them inside and between the farms?


Thanks in advanced

Answer 5

I'd recommend periodically checking http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/Pages/default.aspx for new content in addition to David Taylor's blog here  http://blogs.msdn.com/dtaylor/ throughout the Beta with more resources coming as we continue to towards RTM.

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Bill Baer, Technical Product Manager - US-SharePoint http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer